Sediment monitoring and the European Water Framework Directive.
Sediment is an essential, integral and dynamic part of our river basins. A healthy river needs sediment as a source of life. Unfortunately, sediment also acts as a potential sink for many hazardous chemicals. Above a certain level of contamination this will result in negative impacts such a loss of biodiversity. This is deemed intolerable by society and hence the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) was developed. The WFD aims to achieve a good status of all European waters by the year 2015. The WFD does not specifically deal with sediment although it is clear that there is a link between sediment quality and achieving of this WFD objective. However, related to sediment monitoring there are some direct links in the WFD, which are further explained in this paper.
Brils
Jos
J
Deltares, Utrecht, The Netherlands. jos.brils@tno.nl
D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000592:standards*; D005060:Europe; D019015:Geologic Sediments; D014881:Water Supply / Q000592:standards*